Friday, November 06, 2009

A few years ago I done had an idea. I would set up a blog gathering badly-posed pictures from local papers.

It was inspired partly by the time I watched a group of street performers in Cheltenham unicycling, juggling and performing interactive improvised limericks with a group of fantastically enthusiastic schoolchildren in Cheltenham as a photographer from the local paper stood idly by smoking and drinking coffee, only for him to finally take off his lenscap, call the fun to a halt and insist that everyone stand still and awkwardly pretend to be receiving a large pretend cheque from a local dignitary.

Then I thought "actually, that would be quite a lot of work, wouldn't it." And then I thought "If I was clever, I'd persuade someone to pay me to do it." And then I got distracted by something shiny in the next room, and haven't thought about it since.

Luckily for us all, there is Scaryduck. And he - she? It? not only has impeccable taste (ie links to me here) but actually follows up on his good ideas. Ladies, gentlemen, ducks, I give you Angry People In Local Newspapers.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Look, I know I'm inviting thousands of comments along the lines of "OMG U is SUCH a minger how dare U", and I'm too old, a die-hard Buffyist and switched off Twighlight after 10 minutes even though I was stuck on a plane with 8 hours to kill... but what the hell sort of a teen heart-throb drives a Volvo?

MY OTHER BLOG:

About Me

I'm one of the team of hacks at Private Eye magazine, where I've worked on and off since 1997. I'm also an editorial lieutenant on Popbitch (not sure what it means: we made up the job titles in the pub). I've written for a number of other newspapers and magazines, been a co-presenter on LBC, a regular newspaper reviewer on Sky News and written a biography of the Victorian businessman and philanthropist William Lever. My first novel, Topped of the Pops, a comedy thriller, was to be published in May 2008, until the publishers went bust. From 1999-2002 I was deputy editor of The Big Issue.